Pretty Good Gift Idea: Beer

Perhaps there’s someone on your gift list that likes beer. It is, technically speaking, possible. I mean, some people, I have heard, do like a brew now and then. A little. Once in a while. But what do you give the beer aficionado? Slapping a bow on a sixpack and sliding it under the tree crosses a line that makes many of us feel, well, a little like Clark W. Griswold’s cousin Eddie. But aha! Down at the old neighborhood bookstore, they have a solution: Land of Amber Waters by Doug Hoverson, winner of a Minnesota Book Award. Starting with Minnesota’s first brewery in 1849, Hoverson, a certified beer judge and award-winning homebrewer, tells the story of the state’s beer industry from small-town breweries to large companies such as Schell’s and Grain Belt. The book also highlights today’s beer culture, including new wave of brewpubs. Pair this book up with a gift certificate to one of Northfield’s fine pubs and there you go! Last time I checked, too, RCB had a couple of signed copies on hand.